that damn global warming

There was a news story yesterday about global warming and how this year has been very close to the warmest since reliable temperature records initiated around 1850.

According to the story:

Autumn and early winter temperature records have been set from the Alps to Moscow this year, hurting ski resorts but extending growing seasons. Arctic sea ice shrank to near record lows in the summer.

"This year is likely to be in the top five, probably about the fifth warmest worldwide," said David Viner, senior climate scientist at the British University of East Anglia.

Looking at my yard this is easy to believe. Usually I can stop mowing around the beginning of October but this year it looks like I'm going to have to mow at least once in December. DECEMBER! That's just nuts.

On the other hand, it seems that climatologists are just a little too quick to blame global warming. After all, it's only supposed to warm a few degrees on average in the next century. 3 degrees divided by 100 years is 0.03 degrees a year--not exactly something you're going to notice! So unless a huge calamity is befalling us, this warming is just normal variability. I just wish for once that those folk would blame something other than global warming. Hell, a few years back we had an abnormally cold winter and they were blaming that on the "excessive variability" that global warming was bringing. LOL Global warming can even make it too cold.

That's starting to sound more like a religion than a scientific disipline.

Comments

SassyAssy said…
I would much rather read your take on the news--scientific or otherwise...it is so much more intelligent & reliable!

Happy Holidays Utenzi!
7:10 PM
srp said…
There are cycles in nature. Just last week when the blizzard hit the midwest they were talking about "the most snow in Chicago since the blizzard of 1967". I lived through the blizzard of '67 in Gary, Indiana and that was cold. I'm sure in another 40 years there will be another blizzard as cold and as severe as the one in 2006.

I think they might eventually blame "male pattern baldness" on global warming. Why not.... those few tenths of a degree difference affect the hair follicles, causing them to die or DNA to mutate so that the hair quits growing and falls out..... Works for me!!! ;)
4:44 PM
carmilevy said…
This is where I'm glad that I'm merely mortal and won't be around if and when things go downhill. I almost don't know what to believe anymore...every headline seems to conflict with the previous one.

This is one instance where I'm content to be an ostrich.
9:34 PM
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